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CNS also delivered the first digital vehicle booking system for UK ports in 2002, at Southampton. Bradley continued: “The fourth wave is integration of customer systems with ours. We’re adding more ways for customers to do that – it improves efficiency, certainty, visibility and control.” Transformation CNS has weathered various storms since its inception. Brexit was just one of these, with CNS developing border management products to help clients navigate new requirements smoothly. The company has certainly kept pace with change, and its evolution shows no sign of stopping. “Now we’re in our 40th year, we’re in the process of developing a new platform,” Bradley revealed. “This will include more APIs so customers can integrate more. We’ve also expanded the breadth of services we offer to include integration of our Customs Management System with CCS UK, the electronic system that connects the UK air cargo community.” The biggest transformation for CNS and its clients is the increasing use of AI – whether internally within the business, incorporated into products as automation features for customers, or in terms of how customers interface with a solution such as those CNS provides. Bradley highlighted: “The key to doing something that gives you a successful transactional business outcome is to have high-quality data, all in one place. The role of CNS and other CSPs in the market will be to provide secure access to data, so customers can use AI to improve their business processes. “We also see the whole world of software changing with AI,” he continued. “Building an app can now take minutes or hours, rather than weeks or months, and there will be huge opportunities to develop software for particular niches.” Besides embracing AI, Bradley urged: “The freight industry must collaborate and innovate – in partnership with government – to make the border as simple as possible. CSPs and other stakeholders are best placed to do this; we shouldn’t expect the government to do it for us.”
CNS in the 1990s, when digitalisation was gathering momentum
CNS, developers of community and customs declaration software
CNS serves ports and the air express market
Founded in 1986, Community Network Services (CNS) has evolved through several decades of technological innovation, and has no intention of slowing down CNS: celebrating 40 years
“T he origins of the CSP [community system provider] sector go back over 40 years, when HMRC (then called Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise) began to computerise customs declarations,” explained CNS managing director Matthew Bradley. “Traders were allowed to input data directly into a secure government system, which was a real revolution.” Enter CNS, established to enable customers across the UK to connect to UK Customs, thereby streamlining the customs clearance process. Forty years later, and – particularly in the maritime market – there is practically no paper documentation in sight. Digitalisation Bradley observed: “The first wave of digitalisation was allowing companies to key their declarations directly into the government system. The second was the introduction of the digital manifest. Here, again, UK Customs was innovative in allowing commercial community systems to manage this process. Mutual trust between CSPs, customs and other agencies is fundamental to how
“ The key to doing something that gives you a successful transactional business outcome is to have high-quality data, all in one place – Matthew Bradley, CNS
Matthew Bradley, managing director
the system works.” The third wave of digitalisation occurred when the industry moved from using private networks to internet browsers, enabling transactions to be carried out (theoretically) anywhere in the world using a CSP’s system and providing greater flexibility for customers. “We web-enabled our mainframe Port Community System in the early 2000s and introduced Compass, a fully web- based port community system providing EDI, inventory control and connection to HMRC’s CHIEF system, in 2010,” Bradley said.
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